Maelstrom Mercenary: Nine Tails Dominance
by Uzumaki-sama011
Summary: Due to some unsavory people and their BS, this story is on Hiatus. They completely shot my desire to keep writing it, so I'm simply going to edit the chapters already published until I deem them perfect.
1. Meeting a Nine Tailed Ojou-sama?

**Anime Law #1 - Law of Metaphysical Irregularity -** The normal laws of physics do not apply.

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 **Story Fandom:** Naruto & Naruto Shippūden / High School DxD  
 **Story Title:** Maelstrom Mercenary: Nine Tails Dominance  
 **Story Genre:** Fantasy, Humor, Action, Drama, Adventure, Romance, Tragedy  
 **Story Rating:** Rated M for Mature Content  
 **Story Size (** predicted **):** Mediocre _(40k - 100k)_  
 **Story Ship/Pairing:** Naruto x Yasaka x _secret, read to find out_  
 **Story Author:** Uzumaki-sama011  
 **Story Description:** Naruto knew he was a danger magnet. He knew that, for whatever reason, he would eventually find himself tangled up in some kind of grand mess, whether he liked it or not, even if he simply chanced at going across the street. Which is why it came as no surprise to him that he was drawn into some kind of cold war. Problem was, he wanted nothing to do with any of that.

"You again? What do you want?" - Speech  
"Calling 911. I repeat, calling 911" - Phone Calls  
" **Watashi wa Kyubi no Yoko!** " - Kurama Speaks (corporeal)  
" _ **Watashi wa Kyubi no Yoko!**_ " - Kurama Speaks (sealed)  
" **Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)** " - Technique, Magic, Enchantment, Spellcast, etc. casting.  
 _ **Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)**_ \- Technique, Magic, Enchantment, Spellcast, etc. naming.  
 _'Greaaat. More delusional gods.'_ \- Thoughts, Special Words

 **Disclaimer (rhymes with Reclaimer :P):** I don't own Naruto and I don't own HS DxD

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 ** _Maelstrom_** ** _Mercenary: Nine Tails Dominance_**

 **Chapter 1:** Meeting a Nine Tailed... Ojou-sama?

 **~~~ Chapter One ~~~**

 **Edited: 15. 3. 2016.**

The mark of a brand new day came with the Sun's rise above the Land of the Rising Sun, a country (in)famous for being a global hot-spot for supernatural activities of all kinds. The sun, that mighty orb of power and flames, slowly coasted through the skies, clear blue and cloudless, as it climbed towards its noonly perch by the 'grace' of Amaterasu, Ra, Apollo and numerous other godly entities who tried and ultimately failed – in the long run – to make humans believe their own power brought about something as amazing as a star to existence. Of course, it was a load of rubbish, the stars came to life the same way the first dragons and other entities did. After a long, long time of there simply being nothing there. Countless men and women were already swarming the wide streets of Earth's cities as cars, bikes, buses and other similar manner of transportation continued their perpetual motion from throughout the night, moving to and fro work.

In Kyoto, the capital of Youkai in the far eastern hemisphere, one man remained steadfast asleep amidst this... until the sun's touch landed on his face.

The man groaned, his hand reaching down and grasping the fabric of the bed-sheets, pulling them over himself in an attempt to shield himself from the star's warm and unwelcome-so-early touch.

It failed.

The young man rolled around in his bed, trying (and failing miserably) to go back to sleep before his phone's alarm went off.

Sighing – as the noise was much too loud to ignore - the man sat up in his bed with his mouth opening wide in a yawn, conceding to the fact that he wasn't going to get any more shut-eye this morn' while his hand automatically went to his smartphone that was lying on the bedside table and fumbled with it in an attempt to extinguish the bloody noise. Blocking the oncoming sunlight with his hand and, in turn, seeing as the day was already well underway the man eased himself out of the bed and proceeded to make his way towards the bathroom, most of his body bare sans froggy boxers, yawning again as he stumbled over his shoes.

He was intent on getting a cold shower to deal with his morning issues before spending a good amount of time underneath a hot water faucet, one of the few blessings of modern world he partook in on a regular basis. He took off his sleeping shorts and threw them off to the side onto the trash heap before stepping into the shower cabin buck naked and applying some soap to his body.

The following blast of cold water made him shiver and his little buddy to wilt.

After the issue was done with he turned on the hot water, allowing it to wash over him like a blanket, letting out a small but no less content sigh as the life giving liquid poured over him while he simply stood there with his eyes closed, relaxed. Stepping out of the shower once he was done, the man dried himself off with a towel before laying a hand on the mirror's surface and wiping the collected moisture away, cleaning the mirror enough for him to see his reflection in it.

The sight of his untamed, spiky blond mop of hair with the triple fringe bangs hovering over two cerulean blue orbs with vertical slits in them was as familiar to him as the three whisker marks that lined either sides of his face, birthmarks marking him genetically as a jinchuriki to Kurama.

He yawned (again) before brushing his teeth.

Walking back into the bedroom he started to get dressed before planning out his day. He put on his favorite attire consisting of black trousers, a pair of white sneakers and a dark orange colored shirt under a brown and blue leather jacket and picked up Bee-ossan's sunglasses – they were a gift from the sword master rapper when they won the war. The green chakra crystal necklace of the Shodaime Hokage hanging around his neck, still wet with a few droplets from earlier shower glinted in the early light of morning as he put on his earrings - small platinum rings a person he dearly missed bought him - and buckled together the platinum Rolex onto his left wrist, one of the few luxurious items he owned. He couldn't be bothered by reading the time using the sun's position in this world because it changed seasons every few months, making the days shorter or longer, so he carried a watch with him around. Coincidentally, the Rolex also served as a wrist mounted chakra blade emitter.

He got the idea from fighting some Chinese assassins a while back.

Pushing a tid-bit of chakra into the watch, an amount that most ninjas would most likely find wasteful and overkill for something so small, the blond haired shinobi watched as a bright azure blue blade jumped out of it with a small hiss.

He smiled in satisfaction that it still worked – considering how old the seals were and his not-so-stellar skills with them - and turned the blade projector off before grabbing his phone and checking his mail. Upon closing his phone's system the man leaned back into the couch and looked out through the windows, getting a good look at the large metropolis that was Kyoto, the central lay-line nexus of the eastern world.

The locale of his last job.

 **~~~ Chapter One ~~~**

" _ **I'm bored.**_ "

Two blue eyes rolled around in their sockets.

Those words were so familiar to him he wouldn't even bother to respond, even if the words were spoken in a growl. It technically wasn't really a grow, more of a normal conversational tone the speaker used daily, yet everything that the Kyuubi said that wasn't a powerful shout capable of tearing landscapes apart came out sounding that way.

The man continued sipping his coffee as he focused on the numerous little lines of text and the occasional pictures, flicking his wrists in unison after putting down his drink to get the next page turning over. He was too busy kicking back in a reclining chair and relaxing to worry - or care - about his temperamental partner's whining.

 _" **I take offense to that.** "_

 _..._

Nothing to hear here.

 _..._

 _..._

 _" **Naruto, go pick a fight with someone.** "_

He was not inclined to listen; he wanted to finish his morning newspapers, the ones he was currently holding in his hands while he had the free time to do so. He had paid a pretty penny to lodge in this hotel - for once, he usually slept in cheap motels since he couldn't be bothered to throw his hard earned money to waste, and he wasn't a person who partook in the life of luxury. He was intent on unwinding for a bit before heading out into city. He still had 10 hours to spare before meeting up with his contact.

Kurama did not take kindly to being ignored by its vessel/partner.

" _ **Are you even listening to me you dumb blonde?!**_ "

The blond remained silent.

There was a poof of smoke beside him.

* _CHOMP_

"YEOUCH!"

The man who looked like he was in his mid 20's yelped as something small, orange and fuzzy bit his leg with enough force to crush his bones - in this case it meant that the bite had enough pressure to snap steel bars.

He put down his newspapers to glare at the offending vulpine.

Kurama let go of his leg - the bone inside the limb already healing - having summoned itself into the small fox body the man had created for it long ago so that it could blend in easier into this new world without attracting the media's attention while out of its cage, and gave him a triumphant look. Titanic monster with nine tails capable of crushing mountains spotted would definitely make a headline.

"What the hell was that for?!" Naruto demanded as he tried to swat his papers at the mini fox.

The little thing dodged his swing easily, and spoke to him in a mocking voice as it jumped on the table beside him.

" **Your aim sucks. And that's for ignoring me!** "

The blond huffed, "Screw you Kurama, for crap's sake can't you see I'm relaxing. Go and pick up a fight with a Vampire or something if you're feeling restless, they're tough bastards to kill. Just stop bothering me."

The fox looked at him derisively.

" **Those mosquitoes live in Europe you idiot. This is Japan, the other side of the planet.** " its tone alone verbalized how stupid it thought the blond's words to be.

The man's glare turned even harsher as he put his newspapers down on the table besides him, besides his coffee.

"And you think I care... why?"

The orange furred creature growled as it glared back with equal heat, its tail whipping about behind it in agitation.

Rolling his eyes, the young man picked up the little vulpine by the scruff of its neck, the only real vulnerable spot on the fox's body.

The fox's glare turned into a confused-yet-still-somehow-angry-in-a-cute-way look as it dangled in air like that.

It was being handled indignantly.

It hated being handled, period.

" **What are you doing?** " it demanded, growling menacingly and giving the blond a snarl that used to strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest warriors.

The man spent several wasted seconds staring at the miniaturized tailed beast in his hand that would like nothing more than to tear his throat out at the moment before glancing over his shoulder and eyeing the city with interest.

A merciless grin quickly spread across his face.

The man looked back at the fox.

The fox grew worried, recognizing the light that shone in the man's eyes. Throwing pride to the wind, it starred back at him with its best version of a cute wounded little puppy look, eyes wide and misty, almost as if sensing what he was thinking. Of course, being connected on such a deep level as they were for who knows how long might have something to do with that.

"Really Kurama?" he raised an eyebrow.

The fox gave a small shrug.

" **I had to try.** "

Naruto snorted and unceremoniously threw the small cute creature over his shoulder and over the balcony railing, from the top floor of the five star hotel, without a parachute or the ability to fly.

Kurama looked up towards the quickly distancing top floor of the hotel with a betrayed expression clearly written on its face as it continued to fall down towards the streets, wind snapping at its fur like a mad monkey and limbs waving around like a chicken.

" **NOOOOOoooooo!** "

It vanished in another explosion of smoke and chakra right before it would have went splat on the cement, confusing the passersby who looked around in search for what could have made the smoke appear for all two thirds of a second before continuing with whatever it was that they were doing, too self absorbed in their own little worlds to care.

The man was already back to reading his newspapers by the time the beast's consciousness returned to the Reaper Death Seal, legs crossed over and placed on the table before him, sipping his drink like he had not a worry in the world.

Kurama didn't need a big speech to express his feelings towards the blond.

" _ **I hate you.**_ "

The man smiled.

 **~~~ Chapter One ~~~**

Torii gates here.

Torii gates there.

Torii gates everywhere.

Naruto gawped as he made his way up the Fushimi Inari mountainside.

This was his first time in Kyoto - despite how long he'd been living in Japan - and the sights were definitely something. It was odd that they were so affected, in ways that only someone with experience could tell. While walking down a particularly bland and non-note-worthy street in search of something, anything really to do to alleviate his rising boredom he felt a familiar prickle at the edge of his senses, pulling him in slowly without him even realizing at the beginning. Curious, he had followed after the trail, having nothing better to do.

It guided the blond haired mercenary towards a mountain of some Kami or other where he discovered a veritable spring of pure nature energy, something that was disturbingly rare in this world, hidden underneath a rather potent barrier and an illusion that managed to affect even his own senses, stretching across a huge chunk of Kyoto. The glaring lack of ambient Nature energy across the planet made collecting it a troublesome affair so he rarely if ever bothered to do it, which might explain why he was so easily swayed by the barrier since Kurama was, much like himself, too lazy to keep an eye on them constantly even if they were both highly resilient to genjutsu.

Furrowing eyebrows in thought the blond haired ninja frowned when he remembered the toad elders' reactions upon summoning the two ever-bickering toads to him. To say that Ma and Pa were incredulously scandalized by this state of Nature would be an understatement. Their initial reaction had been a bad beginning to more bad news; they had absolutely no way to bring him back home since no toad - or shinobi, for that matter - had enough chakra to pull him back across the dimensions even though he could still summon his faithful companions, albeit using a much greater amount of chakra. He had as much chakra as the Sage of Six Paths did when fighting the Ten Tails and nobody could dream of summoning him from across the 'Dimensional Gap', it would take the efforts of a dozen Kage just to work - if at all.

Hearing that had been one of the biggest bummer's in his life ever since he woke up in middle of ass out of nowhere with nothing but bruises and severe overtaxation of his chakra network to show for it, which, for once, resulted in him getting sick, bad.

Six Paths Sage Mode didn't come without its own set of drawbacks, much like any other drastic increase in power. Balancing such tremendous amounts of power for even a moment was considered impossible by most ninjas. Even to this day, the damage he received from having that much immense power, the power to rival and kill a primordial, suddenly flowing through his coils in the midst of a war him already heavily taxed hadn't fully healed.

And then the two old crones told him how they expected him to start training a new Toad Summoner to pass his mantle onto, dropped several caskets - Bunta sized caskets mind you - of the strongest sake to exist in the Elemental Nations – Mt Myoboku sake – in front of him as Bunta's gift for his 'scrawny loudmouth blond ass' sticking it to Fate and surviving and cheerfully returned back to their realm, saying they would continue looking for a way to summon him without tearing his body apart in the process.

Cue faceplant.

While our favorite knucklehead was immersed in thought, Kurama, who was currently seated on the tall blond's shoulder in its Chibi Form, let out a semi-loud growl.

The blond looked at the little fox in curiosity.

He promptly sweatdropped when he saw that Kurama was glaring at the Toriis with enough force to catch the wooden gates on fire.

"...what has gotten you so upstrung now?" he asked exasperatedly, this wasn't the first time he'd seen the demon glaring like that and it was often because of the most inane reasons.

A good number of times in the past he had been on the receiving end of similar looks from the tailed beast.

Considering how it's the demon of rage, anger and hatred it didn't come as a surprise to Naruto that Kurama was easily riled up. Hate and love are two of most basic yet powerful emotions to exist, two sides of the same coin, and the all-powerful demon-god-creature-thing that the tailed beasts were created from was a sick mixture of hatred, jealousy and insanity with a touch of motherly love... as ludicrous as it sounded. Kurama got the biggest portion of the Ten Tails power, which meant it got most of the baggage too.

The Nine Tailed Fox in the body of a normal fox grunted, focusing its gaze onto the treeline around them.

" **I don't want to hear a word from you about it.** **You didn't have a good dozen of these things slam you down with enough force to nearly break your bones not just once, but TWICE. And YOU did it the second time too!** " the ill tempered fox snapped, hitting Naruto's head upside down with its tail with no yelps of pain to show for it, making the fox growl at its lack of ability to inflict pain on the knucklehead as it was.

This puny body did not come tailored for dealing damage with its lone tail, unlike its own glorious nine tails.

It suspected the blond planed it like that, sneaky little runt...

The blond grinned at the sight of fox's anger, letting out a short laugh and throwing his head back.

"Ha-ha-ha! I remember that one. You were still being too grumpy to help me fight Madara so I had to muzzle you."

The fox released a menacing and threatening growl from its throat as it turned to target its glare at its partner instead.

"Cute."

" **Grr... Don't make me bite you again fleshbag.** "

Naruto waved off the hissy kitsune's threat.

"Surething _Mom._ "

The glare intensified.

" **SCREW. YOU!** "

Naruto lightly pat the small fox on its head in response.

"Yeah, yeah, love you too you fluffy antique." he said and gave Kurama a wane smile, eyes crinkling in amusement much like his old sensei would do with his lone one.

The chakra beast possessing what was basically a mini-shadow/all-creation clone looked utterly scandalized.

Kurama gave him another glare in return, its black and red eyes flashing in anger, " **Who do you think you are talking to me like that you squishy human?** "

It puffed out its chest and held its head high.

" **I'm the great Kurama-sama, the one and only Kyuubi no Yoko! Bow down to my awesomeness and respect me!** "

"Uh-uh."

The blond deadpanned at it, holding up the single tail the fox's body had in front of its face.

It was all he had to say and do and the fox got the message.

" **Hmph!** "

Kurama snatched its precious tail away from Naruto's fingers before climbing on top of the whiskered Uzumaki's head and pointing a paw forward, tucking its body into the soft mop like some sort of a bird nesting.

" **Onwards to the top my lowly servant. Yip Yip!** "

The blond's eyebrow twitched.

"I'll Yip Yip you! Get the fuck off!"

The tall, lumbering Youkai hiding in the trees and bamboos of the sacred mountain, spying on the foreign presence that had entered Kyoto yesterday without informing the authorities sweatdropped.

Wha-?

 **~~~ Chapter One ~~~**

Situated at the top of the mountain was an old, worn looking shrine dedicated to the Kami of Merchants, Inari, the reason why the mountainside was practically littered with Torii gates from start to finish. They were a traditional way for businesses across Japan to honor the patron god of entrepreneurs in hopes of getting good fortune and his/hers/its blessings. The shrine itself was an old and worn looking structure, clearly withering due to its age however slowly. It was stationed in a small clearing, surrounded by densely grown and packed thick foliage, not looking in anyway as if someone - anyone - took care of it. This raised a couple of questions in Naruto's mind since he knew this was supposed to be well visited tourists site. The lighting was darker than normal there too - the woods around the shrine allowed little sunlight to pass through their branches, similar to how Konoha's forests kept a perpetual darkness hanging over the creatures living in it through day and night - giving the area a slightly haunted look. Good thing he had grown out of his childish fear of ghosts.

Naruto frowned when he sensed another, this time minute genjutsu hovering above the area, before he made the frown go away. It was very subtle - almost gentle in effect he would say, had he been feeling lyrical - and he would not have detected it before he became a sage, since as one he always had a minimal connection with the world, the real world, around him, giving him a brush-like feeling in the back of his mind whenever he was near illusions that shifted the perception of their target. He doubted that even Kakashi could detect this one without his pink eye and that man was one of the most skilled shinobi he'd ever known, tardiness not withstanding.

Which raised the question, why all of it?

An illusion and a passage-barrier over Kyoto, a harmonics barrier to keep in Nature energy, and now this.

Something strange was definitely going on.

Kurama's ears twitched as it rose from its slumber.

" **Naruto...** " it said silently.

The blond shook his head, frown back in place.

"I know Kurama, ignore it. For now. This place is weird, but I'm not here to find out why."

Kurama looked down at Naruto in surprise before shrugging, still sitting on top of the man's head like it was some soft cushion.

"Is this why you always tried to keep me away from this city? All these defensive measures." Naruto murmured, "Obviously, someone put them in place."

" **No.** "

The blond nodded, not doubting its words.

If he couldn't trust Kurama after everything they'd been through, he could trust no one.

Kurama looked down at its partner softly, hearing his thoughts, as its tail swayed from side to side behind Naruto's head, practically at the breeze's mercy.

" **Say, weren't you supposed to call chibi-Kushina by now? It's been several hours since noon.** "

Naruto blinked.

That was an odd theme to talk about, seeing as his partner never really tried to get along with his little princess, preferring to keep a distance from her and act more like a silent guardian than anything.

His eyes flickered upwards in surprise before Naruto furrowed his eyebrows in wonder.

"Chibi-Kushina?" he snickered, before continuing. "What's that supposed to mean Kurama? Her hair's brown, not red."

Kurama sighed in an over-dramatic display of disappointment in him, something that it did regularly. And Naruto always wanted to punch its muzzle in with a Senjutsu enhanced punch whenever it did.

" **For someone who was hailed as the strongest shinobi to live since the founding of shinobi you still sure are a dumb one, ain't you** **?** "

The blond haired Uzumaki found himself, once again, looking at the little fox in annoyance as it hoped back down on his shoulder, anchoring itself with chakra to his body.

Kurama continued to speak in its natural growlish, rumbling tone, uncaring of the look it was being sent, " **She looks a lot like your mother did at her age, all chubby and round in her face. I should know, I was sealed into her at around that time if you recall.** " it stated in annoyance before giving a hum as it scratched its head with the tip of its tail, " **Come to think of it, you share a striking resemblance to your mother as well, much more so than your father... did I mention how much I hate that man. Let your hair grow out, flatten it and dye it red and you would look like she had a male twin.** " the annoyance in its voice was ever-growing. It truly despised Kushina and her predecessor, Mito.

A thoughtful look took over Naruto's facial features, showing that he was seriously considering the option.

Naruto had no way of actually knowing how his mother looked as a kid.

It made him a little sad, if only because his little princess was getting more and more curious about her family background.

" **All three of you have the same idiotic expression on your faces when thinking too...** " the fox finished dryly, mumbling something profane under its breath.

The words broke Naruto from his plans and he shrugged in response, "I wouldn't know, you know that. There weren't any pictures of her left, not even Shinobi ID papers. I checked."

Someone, the Sandaime Hokage most likely, managed to erase every trace of her existence and of her connections to his father.

Not even an address of where she lived was left and her name didn't exist in his birth certificate or citizen registry.

The blond sometimes wondered if the Old Man ever planned on telling him who his parents were or not.

It made his love for the Sandaime Hokage rust.

The fox hummed calculatingly as it turned back to regarding its jinchūriki, knowing its thoughts better than anyone without bothering to peek into them.

" **Regardless,** **the resemblance is rather uncanny. Your Uzumaki genetics are some of the most powerful ones I've ever seen even for a half-breed.** " it then changed its tone from a musing to a matter-of-fact one, which still sounded like a growl to anyone but Naruto," **Of course, you got your good looks from me. I first planned on giving you those whiskers to piss Kushina off, but then your fetus-self had to go and absorb my chakra into your genetics even further than a normal jinchuriki does. Unpredictable even without a brain I tell ya.** " it gave the blond a measuring look, before somehow managing to shrug, " **Of course you didn't improve much with a brain so I guess I'm just that awesome for getting you this far.** "

Naruto's eyebrows were twitching again, "When we're done with this next job I'm getting in there and giving you a Rasengan enema."

" **Hmph. We'll see about that.** "

"Going back to our original topic, she _can_ wait a bit more, extra-curricular activities in school are still supposed to be in session ...I think." Naruto said.

" **She'll get huffy.** " Kurama pointed out bemusedly.

Naruto snorted at the truth of that statement and checked his watch to make sure.

It was actually supposed to end 5 minutes ago.

Meh...

"Let her, I can't be expected to pamper to her desires all the time y'know. Mom would have brained me for acting like that so she's getting off easy. Way too easy." Naruto mumbled.

 **~~~ Chapter One ~~~**

Legitimately feeling curious with the architecture of the shrine - seeing as he'd visited his fair share of them on his travels through the Elemental Nations with his pervy master (when the aforementioned Sannin wasn't screwing whores or getting drunk in the nearest cheap bar on inn) Naruto walked into the haiden, the hall of worship, his footsteps soft and light. The inside of the shrine was filled with decorations, paintings and small statues. Naruto could feel Kurama glaring at the nine tailed depiction of the so-called 'Inari' from his shoulder, causing him to smirk. If creatures like werewolves and dragons existed both in myth and reality, maybe there really were other Kyuubi out there that he hadn't met yet.

Kitsunes were real, why not the ultimate level?

The shrine was a work of art on the inside.

It was also mind-numbingly plain and boring to the Uzumaki.

"Kyoto gets too much cred. It's just as boring as home."

" **Hmmm.** "

Without bothering to bow, he bowed to no-one, especially not gods - be they real or not - Naruto turned around and left.

 **lıllı|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|ıllıl** : Naruto OST - Fake

"...You're not from Kyoto?"

Naruto stopped, one leg in mid-air as a dozen or so presences revealed themselves around him - surrounding him for all the worth it would do. Naruto, unlike what most people would do in such a situation, didn't tense up in alarm. The fact that he was a trained soldier who had to be prepared for anything had little bearing, he knew that he could simply blast his way out of any situation short of Kaguya showing up somehow if it came down to it. It did not warrant being overly aggressive in any case.

In the foliage, the Youkai narrowed his eyes at the development, expecting more... surprise in the blond's bearing.

Naruto put his foot down as he relaxed.

He slid his hands into his pockets lazilly.

"So... it way you guys that were being hidden by that genjutsu, ne? Not bad. Almost had me fooled earlier too."

The veteran of the Fourth Great Shinobi War quickly sized up the people surrounding him as prepared for the worst to come about: they had large dark brown and black blue wings folded on their back, their heads were clearly those of birds and they wore dressings like those of Yamabushi mountain hermits (he knew since he met a few), and were armed with wooden staffs and Kanabo clubs. Several of them didn't carry any weapons at all and were probably hand to hand specialists while some of them wore fox masks and were dressed like shrine priests, lacking the large wings of their Yamabushi comrades. Those were holding their distance further away from him. Mid-Long ranged specialists perhaps?

"Sooo... what the hell do you guys want?"

Naruto questioned the gathered group with a tilt of his head, a friendly and easy-going smile on his face.

Was there something going on in this city that he was unaware of and had just randomly stumbled across?

If so that would really suck since it was only his first day here.

Although the fact that it took this long for something to go screwy with his brand of luck was a fricking miracle.

Getting no response out of the birdy henchmen standing around him Naruto shrugged and turned around to face the person who had revealed their presence first.

Experience told him it would most likely be the leader of the group and those always had something to say for no other apparent reason than to gloat.

"..."

" **...** "

It ...wasn't someone he'd expected if he were honest, someone who's looks screamed 'I'm the big bad boss, you can't touch me through my minions', but rather a very cute and short statured girl, very young obviously, wearing an overly-elaborate, traditional white and orange (hell yea!) priestess outfit.

Her hair was a shining hue of blond and her irises, shaped similarly to his own with a darker colored vertical slit, were golden.

" **...** "

Apart from her complicated looking shrinely attire, she did not look like she belonged to this circle of henchmen. Too soft and fragile looking, but he'd learned long ago that appearances can be deceiving. How do you figure he managed to survive the terror that was his first year in deployment as a gennin; by fighting bad-ass A ranked shinobi head on all the time? He had to deceive some of them too.

" **...** ".

The most unexpected thing about her were her... accessories. A downright shocker, really; accessories as in a pair of small and cute gold colored fox ears situated on top of her head, twitching, and nine fluffy golden tails that he'd seen countless times on Kurama coming up from behind her, flowing with a life of their own, neither touching the ground nor each other. The display was almost hypnotic... except he could see something similar whenever he pissed Kurama off so the effect had no use on him.

Kurama's jaw dropped and came close to unhinging entirely.

Naruto suddenly started chuckling - he couldn't help it - his shoulders shaking as he contained most of his laughter - barely and clearly failing as the seconds ticked by.

The girl's young eyes narrowed at him in offence to this, taking the action as an insult to herself.

Naruto glanced at the dumbstruck fox sitting, correction, nearly falling off his shoulder before mockingly opening his mouth and saying:

"Maybe I should trade you in for her huh buddy? She's a much cuter sight than your prissy, mangy _'One and Only Nine Tails'_ but. Much younger too. 'One and Only Nine Tails' my ass."

Kurama growled at his teasing, and decided to do what was clearly best in this situation.

It bit his ear.

Harsh.

"Youch! Let go of my ear you dusty fox. I need that!"

" **Stop acting like an idiot then! And I'm not THAT old dammit!** "

Said blond pouted at it, something no man his age should be doing.

The little girl's eyes narrowed until she was full-out glaring at the two idiots who were, in her eyes, making fun of her.

Her teeth were gnashing in rage.

She demanded their attention, didn't they know who she was!?

"Outsider! How dare you ignore me!"

The presence in the forest continued to hide, shaking its head at the display of rash emotions.

The Youkai surrounding the foreigner made to move closer at the aggressive rise in the girl's voice.

The creature sighed. It would watch the proceedings to judge how the hime-sama would act in such a situation and only interfere if the situation got out of hand, it had a feeling that the man was much stronger than how he looked.

Back by the shrine the eyes of the fox sitting on Naruto's shoulder literally started sparkling when it saw them take fighting stances.

" **Does this mean you guys want to fight us?** "

Oddly enough, its tail started to wag.

Furiously.

The blond face palmed, groaning and moaning.

Kurama was as bloodthirsty as always.

The Youkai Honor Guard stared at the - what they perceived it to be - small familiar in bamboozlement.

That was not a normal reaction to a threat of being surrounded.

And then they almost had a heart-attack as an immense amount of hatred and killing intent suddenly filled the air, startling the feathers out of them and making their muscles coil in response.

Kurama leaped off of Naruto's shoulder eagerly, its ruby red eyes shining with unfathomed bloodlust as it let the effects of its chakra loose upon the unsuspecting creatures, only for the shinobi's left hand to snap up faster than lightning and snatch the little fox out of the air before it could get even a foot away from him, unleash its titanic chakra form and go ape-shit on them.

"No, bad Kurama!"

The fox growled as its intimidating factor was lost.

" **Why'd you do that, baka! And what the hell, I'm not a dog you squishy meatbag!** "

The blond's infuriating grin was back. "I know, I just love messing with ya'."

The young girl standing by the shrine's entrance which was shielded from Kurama's toxic energy fumed, visibly growing irritated (read: outraged) at their comedy act.

She pointed a finger at them and then shouted with a pissed off expression clearly showing on her otherwise gentle face.

"Give my mother back, Wicked Ones!"

"Eh?"

"You heard me, give her back!"

Naruto blinked, looking up from where he was holding his 'little' friend from massacring everyone and everything in half a mile radius with a bewildered expression on his whiskered mug, "Mother? What the hell are you talking about twerp? I don't even know who you are, let alone who you mother is."

"Liar!" she shouted again.

"Look kid, I don't know who your mother is! Don't go around pointing fingers or someone will eventually bite them."

She wasn't in a listening mood apparently.

"Don't lie! My eyes cannot be deceived. You're a Wicked One, only they would dare!" she said with an imperious tone of voice, straightening her posture and glaring further still, hands on her hips and chin held high.

She was going to solve this herself!

A tick mark appeared on Naruto's head, burning in bold red outlines.

Placing his hands on his hips in a mirroring fashion - her face grew red at this action - he leaned forward while still holding onto Kurama who was glaring death at everyone around him, several of the mountain hermits chuckling at his plight as it looked like it was an accessory hanging from Naruto's belt and not the powerful engine of calamity everyone once feared it to be.

It really, really wanted to bite the blond baka in the ass right now. Or face. Preferably the face.

"...BULLSHIT!"

The nine tailed girl was visibly taken back by his continued denial.

Then she scowled again.

Turning towards the bird-men she commanded, pointing a finger at him, "Attack the filthy outsider! Capture him!"


	2. Beatdown Affliction! Part I

**Anime Law #2 - Law of Differential Gravitation -** Whenever someone or something jumps, is thrown, or otherwise is rendered airborne, gravity is reduced by a factor of 4. Some things have been known to "Float" for a few seconds before plummeting to hit the ground, vehicle, or someone's cranium.

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 ** _Review Responses:_**

 **Exanime Draco** \- (winks) mysteries are what makes life interesting, no?  
 **DannyPhantom619** \- ...uh, that sounds like you want to read about Minato, not Naruto... this Naruto's smart - seeing as he's much older - but he ain't no genius or prodigy.  
 **Gabriel Herrol** \- This is the culmination of most of my ideas for Naruto / DxD that I had absolutely no use for, and let me tell you, there's a lot of them. Just a small example: the 1st arc's plot in NTD is taken straight out of **The 2 Heirs,** but one of the arc climaxes comes from **Sage Rebirth's** own climax. There's a lot of other stuff I didn't bother re/uploading as Scrapped Ideas... so yeah, it ain't like there's no source material for me :D. There'll be updates, don't worry. Just... college man. Also, I lost a whole scene worth 2k words, and it was very important for the plot later on. Sigh, hate it when that happens, so I was bummed about writing this. Hopefully next chapter will come out quicker. It should, its mostly done. Just need to make its flow right.  
 **LordGhostStriker** \- Konou temper tantrum :P  
 **Lightningblade49,T-B-R** \- I know right?  
 **mystery joker** \- uh... how? XD I'm honestly curious.  
 **Guest N (Guest)** \- Hmmm, will they?

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It always amazes me how quickly Naruto / DxD fics become popular. Heck this crossover fandom will soon overtake Naruto / Fairy Tail. Ah, I remember when there were like 20 Naruto DxD fics out there (sniffle, they grow up so fast :P). One half-standard (10k) chapter and already 331 favorites and 452 followers. I know full-length, complete Naruto fics that don't get that many, thanks everyone. **Enjoy this chapter and please review, reviews are my bread and butter in the gloom of college exams and seminars. Tell me what you liked most, what you didn't and what you want to see next, I'm always open for suggestion if I can implement them.** Also, people, go listen to Fandom Flux Podcast. It's a group of Fanfiction authors, one of which is the Patron Saint of Naruto Fanfiction himself, I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the introduction, go Kenchi :). Listening to them has helped me improve immensely.

PS: Random thought that hit me... I noted that the only commercials I can stand watching are made by Coca Cola. Of course they're a bunch of brainwashing scripts, but damn if they aren't catchy and intuitive. I still catch myself singing holidays are coming sometimes :P

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 ** _Maelstrom Mercenary: Nine Tails Dominance_**

 **Chapter 2:** Beatdown Affliction! Part I

 **~~~ Chapter Two Begins ~~~**

"Attack the filthy outsider! Capture him!"

A moment of silence.

Kurama's eyes lit up.

Their muscles visibly tensed.

It grinned wickedly.

Then hell broke loose.

The warrior human-bird hybrids of the far eastern world reacted like a pack of well trained attack dogs – or a flock in this case – as soon as the words left the little ojou's mouth, rushing forward to engage with Naruto in contest of close quarters combat.

Without even batting an eyelash at the aggressive turn of events (because really, who was he kidding when he thought today would be peaceful, psst) the blond mercenary quick-drew his custom-built M1911A1 from the holster on his hip where it lay hidden beneath his jacket while dropping Chibi-Kurama on the ground. The blond made sure his fuzzy friend didn't have access to much of its chakra – or any, really – as it went at them.

He didn't want to flatten the city.

Naruto took snap aim at the closest warrior in his sights and pulled the trigger, double tapping it for every target he took on, hitting his 1st in the chest twice and doing similar to two more before finishing one of them off with a well placed headshot. The handgun he was using packed quite a punch for such a small thing in standard circumstances but his bullets were enhanced with chakra. Their impact yield was over 4 times greater than standard .45 ACP.

Naruto had zero time to appreciate this as the tell-tale whiz of a blade cutting air touched his ears. Reacting without having to think about it Naruto turned around as the flat side of his gun came up to meet the sharp end of a wooden sword with a dull, empty _CLANG_.

The bokken-like blade he crossed against was far sharper than any wood had the right to be, Naruto noted when his cheek got nicked and a small sliver of blood began to drip down his face despite the fact he stopped the cut a good feet away. Instead of trying to overpower his opponent in such a limited time window Naruto deflected the bird-man's overbear by tilting the smooth surface of his gun 50 degrees down-left and kicking the warrior on its knee, his elbow meeting his foe's nose with a crunch.

He slammed the handle of his gun into the bird's temple when the Yamabushi was unbalanced, not having expected the one with whisker marks on his face to turn his block into a slide like that nor for its knee to be targeted during the deadlock. Its nose hurting barely registered to it. The blond warrior then staggered the bird warrior with a knuckle sandwich to the face. As the bird-man stumbled back the blond laid his gun onto his head, charged a little bit of elemental chakra – his measure of little chakra being enough to make sparks of electricity light up around the handgun with a sickening shriek akin to his sensei's one single creation – and fired.

Blood and gory brain-matter mixed together as it flew out from the hind side of the Yamabushi's head in an instant while the cobalt colored _**Jūjutsu: Jūdendan (Firearm Technique**_ **:** _**Charged Shot**_ **)** round penetrated through a dozen or so trees in the far distance like an unstoppable plow before hitting a far out mountain, its speed augmented to hypersonic plus figures, leaving a dissipating trail of wispy azure white in its path like something out of a sci-fi movie.

The corpse fell down to the ground with a muffled thud after flying through the air and cartwheeling as the gun's slide locked out, no more bullets left in the clip for the blowback mechanism crucial to modern firearms to function. The blond clicked his teeth.

Naruto would have been taken by surprise when Kurama's consciousness return to its seal mere seconds into the battle with a loud enough curse to make the world quake if it'd been outside, had he not been as used to the fox's presence as he was. Ire was radiating from the unhappy demon, evidenced by the hostile temper tantrum Naruto could hear going around inside his mind with enough naughty words thrown into it to make a seasoned sailor blush like an innocent little schoolgirl. That small body of its was not meant for causing destruction and mayhem and the millenia old fox didn't really know how to fight when it couldn't merely squash and/or blow its opposition up, which explained why. At least Naruto hadn't seen it fight anyone in any other way.

He then suddenly chuckled.

He really was crazy if stuff like this didn't even phase him anymore.

The girl on the other hand gasped as several of her own people were murdered in less than a couple of seconds by the man she believed kidnapped her mother.

He would teach her a valuable lesson after he dealt with all these nuisances.

A roar of flames came at him with blinding speed, small and swift. Naruto flipped over the fireball, twisting his body about and then jumped over the Yamabushi warriors with a chakra enhanced leap, landing near the stair's end as he placed his M1911A1 back into its holster. Now armless, the Uzumaki patriarch brought his hands about into his favored lightweight stance. Looking at his foes, a wide grin spread across his face he did the 'Come 'ere' taunt.

"Come on fools, bring it! I'll beat every one of ya' black 'n blue!"

They charged with vigor and the dimensionally misplaced ninja quickly started trading kicks with the quickest bird-man of the bunch before seeing an opening and kicking him away. In the same motion in which he'd kicked the warrior away Naruto turned, stopping a staff jab from gutting him by wrapping his hand around the pummeling end of the wooden weapon and pushing it to the side. Coiling his legs and giving the wielder a sharp glare Naruto used the staff beneath him as a balance point with his strong arm, twisting over it in a show of agility and nailing the side of staff wielder's head with his sneakers.

The bird was forced to relinquish its hold over the staff when it toppled over. Naruto gladly took the possession as his feet were re-acquainted with the ground, grinning at the bird's curses. He twirled the staff in his hands like an expert, dancing around another spell of fire before using the staff to redirect a heavy-handed Kanabo drop which shook the very ground they were standing on when it landed. It was nothing special as a weapon, just a three-foot-long club made entirely from iron, with iron studs on one end, with a thick heavy end tapering towards a slender handle and with round shaft. But Naruto knew just how heavy they could hit in an expert's hands. At the same time he had to block a kick from the previous owner of his staff. Naruto used the split moment after their attacks were prevented from accomplishing his defeat by hitting both birds in their face, stomach and face again, or stomach face stomach, depending on which side they were.

Twisting around and ducking he tackled their legs out beneath them with the staff, his motion carrying on as they fell. As their backs neared the grass they used their wings to cushion their impacts, the left one blocking one of Naruto's low-sweeping kicks before flipping over onto their geta-clad feet and glaring at him. Naruto side-stepped another stream of magic after flipping back to his feet. Growing increasingly annoyed by the tiny yet potent and swift blasts of elements and energy sent at him by the priests of this odd, religious wearing bunch he gripped his staff tighter. Rolling beneath a high-sweeping kick he launched the staff towards one of the priests like an impromptu javelin as soon as he stood up, nailing him in the stomach – and most likely through the stomach thanks to his great strength – while the blond tipped his body over into a hand-stand, split kicking the two foes that were closest to him away before vaulting back to his feet.

As they flapped their wings to stop their motion and and re-engaged Naruto in a heated exchanged of kicks, blocks and punches the blond suddenly grabbed them by their necks, crushed their windpipes before spinning on his feet to gain momentum and throwing them away. Their comrades evaded them as the two birds rolled over on the ground before laying still, dead. Naruto's eyes picked up a flash of light from the other end of the clearing and he leaned his body to the right, letting a bolt of emberish lightning sizzle past him and away from the charging hermits. Their precision was poor yet admirable at the same time, since they had to hit him without nailing one of their own, and the area was pretty clustered still.

The lightning jutsu struck a tree, instantly combusting the flora into a small mushroom cloud of ash and dust.

Naruto growled in agitation as he caught the kunai ejected from the spring-loaded mechanism hidden in his jacket's sleeve with his right hand in a flourish, grabbing a handful of shuriken from his belt and throwing them at one of the priests. The flying ninja stars nominally used in clandestine assassinations of the more and less sinister type, coated in an invisible layer of wind chakra cut through him like the man... creature... person was made of paper, doing immense damage that would have killed regular humans instantly, putting the ranged specialist out of action as he fell down and started bleeding out. Thanks to the way he was hit and the blood vessels that got cut, he would bleed out fatally in seven seconds.

Let it never be known that Naruto hesitated in combat.

Another priest went to try and heal him but the wounds were vicious and deep and would take time and effort to deal with, if they could be dealt with at all. But Naruto didn't mind the priest, he was doing an admirable thing of turning his back to the fight in an effort to save his fellow comrade. It was only because Naruto was a good guy bellow all of his rough exterior that the priest didn't receive a kunai in the back of his skull.

That, and this meant he had two, maybe even three people out of the fight for the price of one.

The blond haired Uzumaki then dodged in mid-air, somehow, after jumping away from the second Kanabo wielder, barely managing to escape the kick aimed for his neck that had enough force behind it to send a concussion wave plainly visible to the naked eye careering into the tree-line. The blast of pure force was so strong that it turned the tree it hit into dust, blowing it up like a bad case of diarrhea. That was even worse than what his old teammate did with her collateral way of fighting.

Many a tree had fallen to the pink haired girl's fists.

Naruto landed on the ground and traded a short combo versus the bird who followed after him, punch, punch, elbow block, kick, elbow strike, dodge. A tiny bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. He affirmed in his head NOT to let the Yamabushi land a solid hit on him with their legs.

Ever.

The Yamabushi spun swiftly on its geta, turning around to pepper the blond with a volley of kicks that were meant to bludgeon him into the dirt but it was not to be as Naruto pounced forward, the ground he was standing on shattering under pressure once, then twice for further emphasis as he drove his fist forward and caught the Karasu-Tengu right in the stomach. Letting out a piteous yell of pain that sent chills running down their backs the Youkai was sent crashing into the tree-line like a piece of tungsten shot from a magnetic accelerator cannon, looking more like a streak of shadows than a living creature. The Youkai somehow managed to hit the Youkai who'd been hiding in the trees up till then. Their impact rocked the area and sent trees tumbling down the mountain as they plowed their way into the streets of Kyoto, smashing through the traffic and into a building.

Tripping one of the bird-people when he neared him, Naruto punched the bird in the gut, forcing its breath out of its body, before kicking its comrade in his family jewels before falling backwards on the ground below a staff swipe that was poised to take his head with pure force if not sharpness. Tucking his knees closer to his body he flipped over his handstand and nailed the second attacker with a heavenwards mule kick before standing up once again, pulling the creature by its leg down and then and hitting it with a Chuck Norris kick that sent it soaring towards the tree-line. Naruto had no time to watch it fly, fly away as he started trading kicks with another Tengu, locking the bird's foot on the ground with his own sneaker-clad one and smashing the crow's beak in. Just as the creature fell down a condensed ball of white and orange flames hit the blond square in the back and Naruto let out a slight grunt of pain as the temperature of the fire actually hurt him, which was more than a modest surprise since he could tank fire attacks like a pro. He showed no further reaction to the pain as he got rid of his flaming jacket, throwing it away.

It burnt out of existence before it even hit the ground, its ashes unceremoniously scattering across the wind.

He stared at the particles of grey before the wind took them away.

He looked at the priests who cast the spell with a glare.

That was his favorite jacket

One of the few still standing Tengus charged at Naruto and jumped ahead with his legs raised in what looked oddly a lot like a Dynamic Entry, yelling out a loud ''Raaah!''. Naruto looked at him with a side-way angled head for a moment before shrugging - he really _shouldn't_ be surprised. Naruto flipped the kunai he was holding into a reversed grip as he ducked beneath the Lee-esque charge before grabbing the Youkai's leg and pulling it towards him, hitting a pressure point with his thumb that froze the Tengu's muscles in place. Naruto then stabbed the Youkai into his opposite calf once, twice, burying his kunai into the creature's left knee pit up to hilt before grabbing him by his throat, slamming him down face-first on the ground and pulling his hand back.

It took less then a tenth of a second for blue, ethereal wisps of chakra coalescing around his hand to form his father's prized technique.

" **Rasengan! (Spiraling Sphere!)** "

The bright ball of life energy weaponized appeared in his left with a flash of light.

Naruto thrust forward.

The A rank skill of pure chakra manipulation drove the Shinto region being into the ground like a pressing machine on steroids, stripping flesh from its back and shredding through its wings.

The creature's screams of anguish went unheard of as the jutsu's sound mesmerized them all.

And then it blew up. The resulting explosion of energy consumed the duo, kicking up a fair amount of dust and a whole lot of noise as it sent out a shockwave that nearly sent them all flying. The Tengu warriors hastily regrouped after the shockwave went past them around the explosion site, staring at it seriously. It was kicking up smoke, enough to completely conceal any movement within. The last priest standing hurriedly enacted a spell with a quick, silent chant - a magical hexagon structure in the shape of a dome appearing where their skilled foe was standing prior to the explosion. And then the dust cleared up with an unnatural gust of wind sweeping through the area as Naruto walked up and out of the 5 feet deep and 10 feet wide crater without another scratch on him, dusting himself off lazily. The mere sight pissed them off.

He flicked the blood on his cheek away with his thumb, revealing that the cut was long since healed before looking up around him, only now noticing the barrier before him.

"Hmm..."

The odd collection of hermit monks and warriors of the Youkai world let out screeches of disappointment when they saw that their whiskered foe was trapped in the _**Amethyst Barrier Plates**_ spell, one of the most widely used barrier spells by Youkai spell casters since it worked great against pure physical strength types like trolls, vampires and giants, their most often foes _ **.**_ The warrior spirits in these hermits wanted to - needed to finish this fight on their own terms and they all turned towards the priest to give him a piece of their mind.

The young girl was left ignored in the resulting dispute.

Naruto rolled his shoulder as he looked at the barrier surrounding him. Having faced his fair share of barrier jutsu in service to the Leaf Village he'd been forced to learn how to counter and demolish barriers of all types as quickly and efficiently as possible, brief tenure as commander not withstanding. He could muscle his way out of anything short of the forbidden, cursed flame barriers used by Orochimaru, Leaf's Hokages and the warmongering Uchiha duo. It was so that, without much preamble, Naruto loosened his clenched fist while another bright ball of chakra formed in his hand with the ever familiar, compresurized buzzing, spinning noise of Naruto's life force becoming visible to the naked eye. The massive concentration of pure energy gained their attention well enough and the priest tensed, the Yamabushi looking on eagerly.

The blond Uzumaki walked up to the barrier and, without stopping in his stride, smashed right into it with his **_Rasengan_**.

The barrier cracked like shattered glass.

Dispelling his family technique with a lazy wave of his hand, Naruto stopped walking. A smirk started tugging at the corner of his lips when he noticed their surprised faces, though the warriors' faces were quickly replaced with excitement. He could almost smell the terror rolling off the priest at the sight of his barrier being less-than worthless in the face of Naruto's attack. It would have been strong against someone who wasn't used to dealing with them, but he'd noticed the odd weak spots immediately. Naruto rolled his shoulders again and cracked his knuckles, this was slowly getting fun. Looking over the last show of warriors still upright Naruto slid into his personal make-up taijutsu stance, his left palm open and aiming down at 45 degrees vertical in parallel to his leg while he held his other hand closer to his chest, palm similarly open but fingers spread out. It was a mix of brawling and his teachers' own styles, along with a dozen of other things he'd picked up along the way.

"That was almost too easy. I thought this was supposed to be a fight, not a warm-up."

Their blood boiled at his snark words.

"Come on, com' ere. I've got a whole can full of Uzumaki whoopass just waiting to be opened."

Naruto's grin hid his mischievous thoughts. He was expecting them to charge at him in their anger, which was why he was taunting them every couple of clashes. It was to get them to slip up. It worked great against him in the past, until he got his head cleared out and took up Senjutsu.

Instead, one of the Tengus did something which honestly floored Naruto. The Karasu-Tengu bowed to him.

Naruto was confused.

His confusion only grew in bounds when the other two Yamabushi looked at each other and did the same etiquette, an odd sort of tranquility filling the clearing – well, there were the moans and groans from the guys still alive but wounded, bleeding out, bruised etc, but still. Naruto stared at them strangely.

"Oh skilled Whiskered One-"

...aaaand here Naruto promptly face-faulted.

"-this fight does us honor! You will feel the might of our hard work as we finish this battle!" a blazing inferno of a fire lit up in their eyes. A number of their battle brothers had been decimated in a very short amount of time and it stained their pride as well as their honor since they have barely managed to land a scratch on this foe.

Naruto picked himself up, unable to hold back his sweatdrop as he returned to his stance.

"Uh... sureee?".

Did Lee get reincarnated into this world or something?

Because that sounded disturbingly like something Bushy Brow would say.

"N-No, stop!"

The meek stutters of the blonde haired girl were left ignored, again.

Naruto flickered forward, aiming to take them by surprise at his increase in speed. So imagine his surprise when they managed to react to him and even start counterattacking. One warrior was swinging his club to bludgeon his head like a bloody pulp while the other attempted to tackle his feet out. Naruto tried to lash out with a pair of kicks and punches that were meant to hit both at the same time but the third Tengu intercepted him by crossing their kicks - causing a boom of force - his leg already being pulled back for the followup attack. Naruto used his right hand to push away from the ground after allowing himself to fall onto his back in order to dodge a high-sweeping kick after punching one of them in the face as he vaulted over his head, dodging another kick that turned rock solid earth into mush when it missed him and landed on his previous position instead.

Naruto brought his hands up to make a quick hand-seal but had to roll away as the priest sent a torrent of flames aimed at him, the attack speeding forward like a bullet.

By the time Naruto was back to his knees and looking up there was a geta clad foot inches away from his whiskered face.

One thought went through his mind.

' _S _hit'__

The immense strength of the bird's kick snapped Naruto's head back like a blow from Tsunade, making his whole body vibrate in pain. The rest of his body quickly followed suit with the force of the motion and he was sent flying into the tree-line, performing cartwheels and saltos all the while. The blond's body broke the tree it smashed into in half with enough force still carried over from the kick to uproot it from the ground, the obelisk of nature falling down with a great crash. The blond's eyes closed as he fell down to the ground.

His chest wasn't moving.

A second to dozen passed in which the collective Youkai held their breath before the warriors let out a loud cheer, spreading their wings wide amidst. They had won the battle and proved their dominance to this latest and mighty foe. Their fallen will be remembered with honor.

Holding back by the entrance to the shrine and looking less than fully composed, the last priest standing watched his comrades celebrate such a pointless victory with resignation. He sighed and reached up to remove his mask before wiping the sweat from _her_ face as she finished healing another one of her fallen fellow supernaturals, trying to catch her breath. All this healing was taking its toll on her and her's reserves of energy. She briefly glanced at hime-sama in concern before turning to mend another one of her comrades' wounds, crouching down beside him as her hands lit up. Every Youkai with even a basic knowledge on how to control their power could use it to mend wounds of their fellow living. However, only those specifically trained in the mystical arts of healing could repair such tremendous damage inflicted by the blond outsider with ease.

Who in their right and bloody mind used _guns?!_ They had magic, that's like ten times more effective. And this man combined the two!

The most she could do to help the Karasu-Tengus now was patch them up before real healers could take a look over them.

Unseen by them, Naruto twitched. Had it been anyone else on the receiving end of that kick then that would have been a fatal blow, as it was now it merely scrunched up a bad memory of something similar happening to him when he was younger... much, much younger. He couldn't quite remember it all that clearly so it mustn't have been an important event.

Or it was it even more embarrassing than this.

One or the other.

Kurama's booming laughter didn't make him feel confident of it not being the latter.

After giving the massive engine of destruction in his tummy, and no, by that he didn't mean his actual stomach, a piece of his mind Naruto's eyes snapped open. The color of his irises flickered before settling on standard blue. The blond haired shinobi slowly rolled over onto his front, picking out a stray twig from his hair and flicking it away as he stood up to his knees, letting out a harsh cough that got everyone's attention.

 _Stares._

Holding his head, Naruto twisted and jerked it from side to side, front to back and all the headings in between until he got everything back into its proper place, cursing loudly and colorfully all the while due to the pain.

More _stares_.

The sick crunch of a man's spine re-aligning filled the woods around the blond.

"There!"

After he was sure that he'd fixed his neck well enough to fight on Naruto pushed himself up from where he was basically kneeling and stood up, rolling his head around in various directions all the while to make sure he got it right on the first try, wincing at the audible cracks his neck made in the process. He then patted himself down, dusting his clothes off with one hand, pulled his ruined shirt down to stretch the fabric – showing many a holes in it – and then finally looked up with a hand rubbing his sore neck. Only then did he take note of the disbelieving _stares._

He cocked an eyebrow.

"What? You guys got a pint-size Kyuubi to deal with yet you've never seen a guy walk away from a snapped spine?"

Withholding a sarcastic remark at how that should be impossible from bubbling forth the Tengu who'd just nearly killed Naruto sprung forth like a viper, aiming to coral the blond back into the tree while the Kanabo wielding bird-man flew up, flipped over and descended from the sky like a dive bomber.

Naruto released a tired sigh as he rubbed his eyes before tilting his body forward and charging faster then their eyes could follow, slipping under the bird's knee jerk reaction kick at the very last second and throwing a punch. It connected and shattered the Yamabushi's knee like hammer meeting pretzels. Catching the bird by the fabric of its clothes when it went down Naruto pulled it into the air with a surprising amount of ease, ready to knock its beak in only for the third warrior to come from his side and smash into him with an equivalent force of a tow tow truck speeding while outracing a Formula 1.

In other words, it hurt.

A lot.

Naruto winced as the kick nearly broke his guard, these creatures has a stupid amount of strength behind their kicks. The dimensionally misplaced shinobi was blasted towards the other side of the small clearing, feet digging a trench through the ground before he jumped back.

One red eye narrowed.

" _ **What's this? You're playing Ping Pong now?**_ "

 _'Huh?_ '

 _" **Get up and blow their feathery behinds sky high, this is just embarrassing to watch.**_ " Kurama admonished in boredom, not even bothering to color that statement with its legendary anger.

' _Well sorry for now providing you with a good enough entertainment.'_ Naruto snapped.

" _ **It's getting obvious you need to start training again, your situational awareness is trash."**_

 _'It's not that bad'_

The Nine Tails snorted. _ **"You know it is, you just won't admit it. You got lazy in the last three decades and let your skills rot. Now look where it got you. Getting your ass trashed by a couple of grunts. Disgusting.**_ "

Flipping himself over in mid flight the blond landed on a tree in a horizontal crouching stance that all shinobi favor, cushioning the velocity and energy of his impact with well practiced movement as he stuck to its side with chakra. His face was dull as he focused inwards.

" _You're not being helpful like that y'know._ "

The beast snorted again, " _ **Whatever. The way I see it your ass is getting handed to you, again, so maybe I should bail you out of trouble. Again, I might add.**_ "

" _That's not what I meant teme!_ "

Kurama raised a brow, " _ **Then what do you want? No one is going to miss this mound of dirt y'know, of that I can assure you.**_ " by that Kurama most likely meant it would simply destroy anything that might take offense to its landscape decorating skills. Since most of Naruto's own jutsus could be classified as demolition or wide-scale destruction techniques he used ninja tools and his gun more often than anything else when fighting since he really didn't need to draw that much attention to himself anymore – he had other responsibilities right now. Small, hot-tempered and brash responsibilities, but his own still. Letting every single entity in existance know he housed as much power as he did would inevitably summon more trouble than he cared to mend. His days of fighting super-powered opponents just to get some peace and quite were over, thank you very much.

Naruto pulled out the spent clip from his gun and slipped in a new one with practiced ease.

Whatever boost in strength and speed their rage gave them shouldn't hold up to wind enhanced bullets, right?

He wildly shook his mental head, ' _What?! NOOO! _I don't need you to level this mountain fox, fights like these take more finesse than simply trashing everything.__ '

The Tailed Beast stared numbly.

" _ **You? Finesse?**_ _"_ it bust out in laughter, " _ **When did a blonde idiot like you learn the meaning of such a word. Every single ninjutsu you know is flashy and destructive. Every single move you know is flashy and everything you do is flashy. You're not really as subtle as you think."**_

' _Heeeeey? What's with that tone. I can so hold back and fight like a real ninja, believe it!'_

Kurama's gaze turned deadpan, _**"Brat, you wore bright orange jumpsuits and your main form of attack was a pint-sized Bijudama. You then decided to turn it into an attack comparable to Bijudama in power, if not scale, by filling it up with highly pressurized wind chakra before you got the bright idea to make Ultra Big Balls and turn them into Rasenshurikens as well.**_ "

Naruto's mental projection acted sheepish at the reminder.

" _ **That was three years into your career as a ninja. Your mother could barely half-ass an Imari before she got knocked up. Newsflash, you're not a ninja if everyone knows your name, believe it.**_ "

'... _I feel the need to point out that your fur is also orange._ '

Naruto stated indignantly without bothering to correct the mountainous beast on his ninjutsu.

The Rasengan only looked like a Bijudama because it was round and was made up of pure chakra. That's where their similarities ended. The physics behind them were like night and day.

Ultra Big Ball Rasengan blowing up could take out a mountain, but that's besides the point.

" _ **My magnificent fur is awesome."**_ it boasted.

 _'Such humility.'_

 _" **Humility is for losers and human meat-bags. Orange is a majestic colour,**_ _ **only befitting of someone awesome like me, not a dumbass like you. And, unlike you, I'm not a shinobi. I crumble mountains with a flick of my tails, I raise tsunamis by roaring, I'm destruction incarnate. I did not grow up to become an assassin.**_ " the Nine Tails finished smugly.

The blond's eye was twitching uncontrollably by the time Kurama finished.

' _Kurama...'_

" ** _Yes?_** "

' _Fuck you!'_

Laughter met his statement as he cut the connection, returning to the outside world just in time to feel an immense gathering of heat headed towards him. Tilting his head up from where he was standing side-ways against a tree Naruto looked up. His eyes widened before he hastily scrambled to get out of the way of the roaring wall of fire headed towards him. Those flames were searingly hot even at a distance and he didn't want to test out how much of them he could stand – he didn't want to prance around naked after all, his clothes could only take so much fire before they burnt out. Naruto jumped up and then across a number of branches in a flurry of leaves, his movements nimble as he dodged the blast of fire which hit the tree with explosive force and spread to a dozen or others like a hungry beasts, landing on one branch that was in clear view of his foes in a shinobi crouch.

Looking towards the shrine entrance from where the blast originated from with a narrowed look he gave the two women a hard stare.

He could see the blonde cutie with nine fox tails who started this whole mess, looking all torn up and teary eyed as she sent another massive blast of orange and white fire aimed in his direction. The technique was obviously hard for her to perform and she didn't have many of those blasts left in her, judging from the way she was huffing and gasping for air. He had to admit it was impressive.

For a kid.

Naruto waited for the fire to get close to him before holding up a single half-seal and vanishing in a gust of air, the blazing inferno covering his escape better than any smoke bomb ever could. He didn't really care for sneaking around that much in combat but it certainly had its perks in battlefield control. He wanted to blow up the priests...ess, erm, okay, maybe not kill the woman since she was a looker behind that mask of hers, but he wouldn't harm a kid intentionally. Scare them good, but certainly not kill her.

The girl was starving for oxygen after a good dozen seconds of uninterrupted spell casting.

She glared at the forest fires as she was huffing and puffing, exhaustion clearly present in her stance as she waved her hand in front of her face before letting it slack beside her.

The motion snuffed out the firestorm with her powers over fox fire.

Tired eyes blinked open when they noted no extra-crispy corpse smoking in a crater.

Backing up a single step from the Wicked's last know position, the little blondie looked around the woods in fright when she realized that the man responsible for her mother's disappearance was nowhere in sight – she knew her power wasn't yet so great to incinerate someone into nothing, even with her most powerful attack. The nine tails behind her waved around frantically. It was then that a pair of gunshots rang out from her left, hitting one of her bodyguards' legs as they were moving closer to her so they could guard her from the whiskered man.

The Crow Dog that was shot fell down to its knees, his Kanabo slipping from his grasp.

The priestess, seeing this, started chanting a quick restorations spell on him under her breath, just like she'd done on several others beforehand in order to stave off their deaths or pains – she wasn't a Crow and didn't give their odd sense of honor much value – but before she could finish the blond male was back, dropping from the sky out of seemingly nowhere and landing on top of the downed Tengu, planting his feet on him and driving his body into the ground with force.

The man slowly stepped off the Youkai who was left imprinted into the ground with only two of his limbs still visibly stuck above ground and aimed his gun towards the blonde haired girl and the Youkai guarding her.

The priestess eyes jumped from his firearm to the latest casualty.

The Yamabushi's hand twitched before them.

The man slammed his foot back down on the Tengu, driving his body further into the ground as its limbs went slack.

"Next."


	3. Vague Aberrant

**Anime Law** **#3 - Law of Sonic Amplification, First Law of Anime Acoustics -** In space, loud sounds, like explosions, are even louder because there is no air to get in the way.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

 ** _Review Responses:_**

 **YuukiAsuna-Chan:** You're exaggerating Tsunade's strength. And before you jump on the fact she only used a finger to crack open a street, the whole point of her technique is to release a burst of chakra on a small surface – the smaller, the better. It's a pin-point attack, and I'd wager it's easier to do with a finger than a fist. Of course a lone finger is much likely to go crunch in a real fight than a whole fist. Those Youkai giving Naruto more trouble than they did Issei? Canon fodder, what those Youkai are in cannon, does not exist in my writing. I employ less skilled, less powerful or incompetent fighters instead, and seeing as those guys were guarding Kunou, the princess of Kyoto Youkai, I won't make them neither. Remember, Kakashi's ass got handed to him in his first fight. He was still badass enough to go toe-to-toe against several jinchuriki in their V2 forms come the Fourth Great Shinobi War and lead an entire division of shinobi from the front-lines.

I was raised playing chess. Heck, I knew how to chess before I did my ABCs. What you might call fodder are Peons (Pawns) in chess. And Peons can still take other Peons, Knights, Rooks, Bishops, the Queen and the King, the whole shablang, even become a Queen on their own, if you're skilled enough.

See where I'm getting at?

 **Author's Note:** Beatdown Part II is going to be another, more explosive fight.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ~-~-~ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ~-~-~ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

 ** _Maelstrom Mercenary: Nine Tails Dominance_**

 **Chapter 3:** Vague Aberrant

 **~~~ Chapter Three ~~~**

Instead of attacking him head-on again like they'd been doing up to now, the two Tengus fell into defensive forms, their stances mirroring one another - it would seem they weren't as idiotic as he thought them to be. Naruto wouldn't admit it - to himself or to anyone who asked - but this made him feel a tad bit... disappointed, that they ignored his taunts like that. It was quite a while since he had a good taijutsu match with people he didn't need to worry about snapping in twine with his great physical strength, his pseudo-extended family being one of the few who could handle him without much to worry about. However, he refused to fight them with his full strength, he could never hurt them on purpose even in a spar.

It made finding worthy opponents very difficult - and the Youkai had been so eager to fight him too. Shaking his head at how quickly they switched their behavior the blond decided to ignore them, opting instead to get a better look at the woman who was giving him the stink eye. He saw her pull out a small tag from her sleeve, holding it up between two fingers without crinkling the paper.

The tag looked quite a lot like the ones ninjas used to plant explosives with runic scripts written across it and his mind jumped on a chance to decipher what the seals could mean.

His mind still wandered thou, there was something familiar about this woman that Naruto couldn't place a finger on, something that drew in his intrigue. Her orange, rust-colored hair easily caught his attention the moment she took off that mask of hers and her facials were gnawing at his mind like something terribly annoying, the shape of her face, her nose, slitted eyes, the lot. It was like he'd meet her before.

He shook his head, so not the time for that. He had a contract to complete, and he had to finish this first.

She searched his eyes for traces of the illusion working once their gazes crossed, causing the blond to smirk at her.

He would have to disappoint her; his smirk widened as she scowled, realizing this, and put away the tag.

"Sorry 'un, but I'm immune to genjutsu. Nice try though." he winked.

She wasn't smiling back, causing Naruto's smirk to fade away.

"This isn't something I'd joke about." her eyes grew harsher as she took a single, threatening step forward, positioning herself to better shield the young girl from his weapon.

He stared at her for a moment.

"If that's how it's going to be."

The blond switched his posture to a more serious one, his eyes steeling themselves on the younger blonde after a few moments - causing her to flinch as if struck by a slap and scoot closer to the priestess. He observed her more closely for a few seconds before glancing over his left shoulder, as if considering the weather on the horizon.

"Your name."

"Huh?"

The Uzumaki rolled his eyes, tilting his head back to study the duo from head to toe, the sidearm in his hand still trained on the woman to keep the tension growing.

That, and he thought her scowl was pretty hot.

Hey, it's been a while since he got laid.

"I asked what your name is, little fox. Or are you that incompetent that you don't understand something so simple?" he sneered, his face serious without a trace of his famous grin.

"Don't talk to her like that you ASS! Can't you see she's just a child!"

The priestess was quick to lash out at as twin football sized orbs of orange and white fire sprung to life in her hands, held stationary above her palms like he held his Rasengan. She looked ready to eviscerate him on the spot, causing a small sweatdrop tear to form on the back of his head... maybe he was getting into it a bit too much.

"Or what? She'll sick people at me? You'll fight against me?" he lowered the arm holding his sidearm and hinted towards the downed Youkai with his chin, getting his act going - can't appear too friendly after all of this, "As you can see that didn't play out all that well now, did it?"

"You will pay for that. She will never fall into your hands."

He glanced back at the woman in annoyance.

His eyes flashed red.

"Be silent servant. Your opinion's of no concern to me."

The wind answered his mind's call and made her fireballs vanish, shocking them.

He wasn't surprised at their reaction.

The attack was as powerful and compressed, if not more so, as his early Rasenshurikens. If it went off it would be quite noticeable, seeing as his jutsu one-shot an S rank shinobi the first time it was deployed in combat.

"Now I'll ask her, once more, what her name is. I'm running low on patience and have more than enough energy to blow you and everyone else here to kingdom come if you'all don't. Start. Talking!" He didn't appreciate being attacked without provocation these days, he'd been through that shit in his home dimension plenty of times.

So his tone might have been a little harsh.

"Kunou!" the young Kitsune shouted once she managed to stop shivering, giving Naruto a fierce golden glare – the effects of which were utterly ruined by her tear stained face, "It's Kunou! Now stop bullying Akii-nee!"

"...Kunou?" Naruto repeated whilst glancing at the Tengus, who'd stopped opposite of one another with him in the middle. 'Trapping' him in.

He looked back at the young lass with a frown.

"Is it worth it?"

The girl's teary blinks told him she didn't catch his drift.

"Their lives. Were they worth your stubbornness, hmm?" the blond clarified as he thumbed a finger in the direction of the lying, beaten, bruised and in some cases – dead – warriors over his shoulder, "I didn't bother to count but I'm sure at least 5 of them croaked, and for what? Some snotty girl's rash actions. Just to think, none of them needed to kick the bucket." he sighed, twisting his shoulder, "I hate brats like you y'know, you act like the world owes you everything. It makes me nauseous."

The blond's standards of how well children in position of power should understand the repercussions of their actions were forged by his own history. He saw no reason to take it lightly on a brat that could order people around to do her biding and attack him.

Understanding the value of leadership, and the burdens of it, were what Naruto respected in people.

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! You're a meanie! You didn't have to kill them!"

"Oh?" he tilted his head aside quizzically, eyebrow raised, "And why am I a," he had to brace himself, least he laugh, "...meanie? For defending myself in the face of a threat? You ordered these men to strike me, Kunou. Their lives were your responsibility, not mine. I'm just a simple wandering merc who was minding his own business. I had the right to fight back y'know." it wasn't a lie per say, he really did wander around quite a bit. He just had a home with a daughter to come back to everyday, if he so wished. Reverse summoning scrolls were awesome.

"We wouldn't have to fight if you didn't kidnap my mother!" the young Kitsune shouted while the priestess, Akii, glared at him again, though she refrained from speaking after she felt him focus his blood-lust on her, "I want Mommy back!" Kunou's words came out with a side serving of hiccups and some more tears as she buried her face in Akii's side, her tiny frame shaking with each subsequent sniffle.

The priestess held her close to herself with one elbow on her back as a new fire attack started to burn brightly in her hands.

He stared for a moment, not really doing anything.

Mentally, he cried out, '... _Give me a break will ya!'_

Naruto held back a sigh; now he felt like complete shit. He had to hold himself back from simply drooping this farse of a stern life lesson giving asshole in favor of hugging the life out of the little cutie, so sad was the scene.

He was always a sucker for girls, sad girls, pretty girls and crying girls.

Being a father to _a girl_ certainly didn't help it.

He blamed Jiraiya.

Deep within him, Kurama scoffed.

The blond's free hand came up to rubs his temple as he dropped his aim; he couldn't keep his gun pointing at something so cute and distraught, "Kami, you're too stubborn..." he said as he raised his hand further, to run it through his hair, "I told you before, I didn't take your mother away Kunou, I don't _do_ kidnappings, I hardly even do serious jobs anymore."

She and the priestes ignored him, figures.

Children.

Women.

"I frankly don't have a clue on who you are, and I don't got the foggiest idea who you're mom is. Your nature, your status? It means absolutely nothing to me, one small kitsune doesn't garner much attention from me even if she's a Kyuubi."

That was a lie.

Naruto knew that kitsunes - trickster spirits - made up a portion of the local supernatural world, he just wasn't aware that nine tailed ones existed beyond this so called 'Inari' - and seeing as he didn't believe in gods he couldn't whack down, he didn't believe it was real - the fact the cultures were crossed over with his own, even having the same names, only reinforced his belief they were nothing more than tales of old, dead people.

He would have been interested in finding out more about an actual Kyuubi, if he wasn't to be contacted for a job today.

The job was more of a favor than anything really, so he couldn't just drop it either.

He looked at her, and came to a decision, waving his hand dismissively, "Go home girl, I'm sure grown-ups are trying to find her if she's so important."

Kunou pulled her head back from Akii's side just enough to send him another glare, "Liar!"

Naruto shrugged, "Can't please them all I suppose."

Kunou's glare didn't let up at his nonchalance, "Then explain why does your presence feel so much like mother's?! You must have stolen her power from her somehow, she's the only person who has such a signature. That's how you got her! We told you Wickeds that we want nothing with your faction!"

The blond frowned, storing the last part for later, "Now why would that be?"

"Why do you think?" she was annoyed that this man continued to deny what was obvious.

That didn't sit right with him, not at all. It could cause some serious problems if someone had energy so similar to his own that even the woman's daughter couldn't tell the difference. His eyes tightened as he thought of what to do next, planning wasn't his strongest suit, never was. He didn't gave enough information to go on, and he doubted these people would be forthcoming to him after he killed their members - even if it was in self-defense.

The student of the Gama Sennin took a cautionary glance at the two Tengus while Kunou continued to glare at him.

Looking back at the priestess when he felt a change in the air Naruto caught sight of her lips moving – barely – and his muscles tensed in preparation. Traditional Shinto Magic, Kotodama, was powered by words of meaning in the same manner as how ninjutsu was primarily performed by doing hand seals designed for molding the inner flow of chakra.

And just like how a ninja can learn to use ninjutsu without seals, Kotodama didn't need to be spoken out loud.

This didn't mean he couldn't lip read. He wasn't the best at it, but he could do it.

And what she said roughly translated to...

" **Iwai no Kusari Ketsugō (Chain Binding Festival)** "

Naruto's eyebrows' furrowed together before he heard a sound, like metal pipes clicking together violently and before he could react it was upon him; from above, from below, from all around Naruto, numerous chains of magical metal spewed forth from ripple-like distortions floating in space in a blink of an eye, swiftly and uncomfortably, tightly wrapping themselves around Naruto and in between his legs, arms, around his neck and over his joints, intersecting and interlocking across his body more times than the blond could count.

Naruto looked down at the chains holding him blandly - somebody up there really, _really_ loved fucking with him.

' _You have GOT to be fricking kidding me.'_

Kurama was laughing its ass off in the meantime.

The two warriors on his sides wasted not a single moment as they snapped off a pair of kicks in Naruto's direction with the chance, the force of their attacks travelling through thin air towards the blond like a pair of white, spear-cone-shaped mirages. Akii launched the twin fireballs at him, leaving Naruto with just enough time to murmur something under his breath before the compressurized attack hit him. It combined with the two shock waves and the rush of displaced air they were bringing in, conforming into a majestic conflagration of fire that forced everyone to shield their eyes or risk getting blinded.

The fire roared like a wild, hungry beasts, devouring the blond inside, but somehow still managing to keep away from their own casualties.

There were no screams - the fire was way too loud for any sound to break through from the inside while the barrier around the mountain was strained to keep the illusion still going. It was an off-shot of the dimensional barrier hiding Inner Kyoto and its main Shrine, not nearly as powerful but still quite persistent.

Several seconds passed before Akii thought it was enough.

She placed a hand on the young girl's shoulder.

"Hime-sama, you should stop the fires from spreading."

She whimpered, "Do you think he's dead?"

She looked up with teary blinks, shaken from the man's words.

Shaken by what they implied.

The priestess shook her head in response as she looked down at the young fox girl kindly, offering her a small grin, "No, but he'll be deep fried soon if you don't stop it, and then we won't get any answers." she said as she glanced towards the explosion, covering her eyes to stop her retinas from burning out, "I wasn't expecting the fire to get this intense." she ignored the way the two Tengus puffed up in pride.

After a few moments of holding onto the older woman, Kunou nodded.

"Alright."

The fox girl scrunched her eyes in concentration and focused her power and strength on the flames, willing the fire to disappear. Slowly, the flames died out as she did, the whirlpool of fire calming down like a beast pacified before naught an ember was left.

Naught an ember, naught a crispy man.

Kunou and the two Karasu Tengus stared as they sensed more Youkai finally coming up the mountain, accompanied by another group of Wickeds that made Kunou's mood sour further.

Akii blinked.

"Crap. It's him, isn't it."

Her master would be incredibly annoyed at her once she found out what happened.

 **~~~ Chapter Three ~~~**

In another and all together different part of Kyoto Naruto, now wearing a new white and red shirt since his old one was full of scratches and burns, could be found leaning against the side of a building with his arms crossed over his chest, one leg propped up against the wall. The Uzumaki descendant stood inside the small and shady alleyway with a slight frown on his face as he stared at the clouds passing by in the skies overhead, trying to ignore the ridiculous amounts of noise and sound pollution a metropolis like Kyoto made.

It would seem that rain was to come by evening, judging by the shift of moisture in the air.

He snorted; so much for weather forecasts.

The whiskered male had already introduced his foot to a bunch of wannabe punks' and crooks' asses when they though they could mug him in the alley. The fact that half of them weren't even human didn't matter to him in any shape or form as he imprinted the design of his sneakers' soles into their flesh before throwing them onto the street from the alley and watching them scurry of with tails between their legs - in some cases quite literally. And since his tour of the city was so rudely interrupted by a blond haired brat, he was left with nothing to do but wait for his _contact_ to come to him. It was annoying, incredibly so, that he had to wait in such a dirty and smelly place when he already knew where and when the so called 'event' was taking place, but the SOUSnA leader loved his gimmick spy novels.

He sighed in boredom as he rubbed his aching shoulder, the injury from the Fourth Great Shinobi war had never quite healed right.

He tried counting sheep in his head before he gave up on that since it only made him hungry and attempted to hold back another sigh.

He was getting old.

He sure as hell didn't look like it but Naruto was sure he was approaching his 70-s, and his superior jinchuriki, senjutsu influenced Uzumaki life-force can only hold on for so long. It won't be long before his body started visibly aging. He was only human after all. Even the Old Sage died in the end.

Then the blond's hand suddenly shot up to hold his forehead as Naruto stumbled forward after receiving the memories of the shadow clone he left behind to take care of the annoying brat, feeling phantom blisters pop across his skin from the heat of its cocky death. He frowned as he started reviewing them, those idiots never listen to him - the clone was supposed to knock out (or kill) everyone and seal away their memories of him to make sure he couldn't be traced, not chastise the kid before getting caught in a trap.

Though the memory seemed fragmented for some reason he couldn't tell, that much was obvious of what happened.

The pieces lost in transit probably weren't important, or he'd have surely remembered them.

He shook his head in thought as numerous questions popped up inside his mind.

This development certainly demanded some investigating into the issue.

His pants suddenly started vibrating.

The sound of bamboo music filled his ears.

 _HYOOOOOOUUUUUUU!_

The Kabuki Scream that was his ringtone - in memory of his sensei and his antics - sang out loud and true, turning his attention towards his phone.

He reached into his pants to pull it out, this time failing to hold back the earlier sigh when he saw who the caller was.

A faint smile tugged at his lips, regardless.

"...Yes sweetie, what is it?"

From the other end of the line came a young girl's voice, whiny.

"Daaaaaaa-d, you promised you would call after my remedial classes! School's already over by now y'know, you were supposed to do it! I've been waiting for soooo loooooong!"

It was his little girl, Uzumaki Shina.

She sounded huffy.

He likened to think she got it from her mother.

Within him, Kurama snorted, but refrained from commenting.

"Daddy is busy right now sweat-heart. I have a job to do. You know I can't call you when that happens." he said, before adding, "And you should know better to call me at this time either."

"I don't care. You should have called anyways." he could already imagine her angry pout from the way she sounded and it brought another smile to his face, this time far from faint.

She really was a blessing to him, after all the shit he lived through.

Too bad her mother died giving birth.

"Where's your Auntie Shina? She should have been there by now to pick you up, and I doubt she would let you call me on something so important."

A different yet all too familiar voice answered his question and the blond realized that he must be on speakers for it to happen so quickly.

"Don't worry Naruto-kun. I'm here. She's safely sitting on the couch besides me, stuffing her face in with your cooking."

Shina was quick to retort, "Am not!"

Naruto rubbed his forehead, leaning back against the wall as he ignored the new presence entering the alley.

"You should know better than to call me when I'm contracted." he said seriously.

"You know just how Shina-chan gets when you don't call. What could I do to stop her? She's too much like you. And you know me, I never could resist you."

He smiled fondly at her words.

"Excuses."

Yes, he knew exactly how bad she could get.

She definitely got her personality from him and her paternal grandmother, his own mother.

"You keep telling her these jobs will stop one day so the two of you can spend more time together yet you keep taking on further jobs. I'm not surprised she's angry."

"Uhuh!" Shina agreed.

Somehow his sister-figure managed to give him a disapproving look even from a hundred miles away.

God dammit if those two knew how to make him dance to their little witching tune.

He had to close the line before it went where he knew it was going.

"Can't talk now, the client's waiting. Make sure Shina does her homework and don't feed her any ramen, she's still grounded. I gotta go, hear you two later."

"Hey! No fair!"

"Naruto wai-"

The line closed with a tap to the screen.

Naruto stared at his smartphone for a while before closing his eyes and slipping it back into the pocket of his pants. Rolling his shoulder to get a few kinks out of it, he turned his attention towards the large coat and fedora wearing man that was waiting for his reaction in the alleyway - their meeting point by his choice.

He sweatdropped when he saw the man's fashion sense.

It didn't look out of place... if one were to travel some 70 years in the past.

Somebody loved their spy novels a bit too much.

He titled his head to the side before rolling his eyes and stating the password.

"Hello. What a nice day it is, would you call the season prospering?"

"Aye, it feels like a flower blooming in the warm love of the sun."

Rolling his sky blues again Naruto reached into another pocket and put on his old sensei's sunglasses before leaning back against the wall with his left side.

"Well? I'm listening. And for the record, just so that we're square, you owe me. Big time."

The man twitched as he took a step closer, getting up in Naruto's nose, "What are you talking about? We've just me-"

Naruto slapped the man's head, taking off his hat in the process, revealing that the man had short and well trimmed bluish-white hair and brown eyes.

"Two things. Franky, you're an idiot, and this word play is stupid. Now talk. I just want to get today over with before more crap comes up."

The man's ears were quickly turning the color of freshly cooked lobster as he snatched his fedora back and put it on his head.

"Oh be quiet you, at least I'm not a Ramen obsessed freak."

"Yet you still loved my cooking."

His ears were burning again.

"Shut up!"

"Is that anyway to talk to your teacher?"

"Sod off, shitty old man!"

Naruto released a laugh.

He quite certainly needed one.

 **~~~ Chapter Three ~~~**

 **lıllı|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|ıllıl** : Zhuāng Tái Qiū Sī -  Sao Tau Hay

 ** _Pacific Ocean, Japan  
_** ** _Southern coast of_** ** _Shikoku, 1963_**

 _Under the downpour of a tropical storm, a single jeep colored in plain tan camouflage raced through the thick coastal jungle of Japan's southern island._

 _The machine endured nature's attempts to hold it down, weathering the unwelcoming weather and leaving mud tracks in its wake. Its tires splashed through mud and puddle alike at a common rate, itself sometimes jumping as the road it drove on was not cemented and thus had naturally occurring holes in it._

 _The jeep was former military property, a converted US Army Willys MB series with an add-on plastic roof._

 _It was once nothing but a wreck, however, its current owner's love for tinkering with things and sheer stubbornness made it serviceable once more._

 _The owner of this iconic vehicle was a tall 'Gaijin', a Caucasian male with odd, spiky, almost shining hue of golden blond hair. His face sported three pairs of whiskers on his cheeks that gave him the appearance of a scheming fox whenever he was grinning and/or planning something and his eyes were a foreign color of blue._

 _The cold moist air of the monsune season flew into the jeep's insides indiscriminately thanks to its lack of proper windows, creating quite a drift. In such circumstances the blond man's plain attire of worn, rugged brown pants and a simple yellow Tee did not look like it could provide sufficient deterant from a cold. He didn't seem to mind._

 _In contrast to his light and airy clothing, the young woman sitting on the blond's side was dressed in a pair of snug looking blue jeans and an old black aviators jacket, the choice in attire looking far more warmer and appropriate for the weather. She had long, oddly colored black and blue hair that reached down past her shoulder blades, the colors themselves seemingly alive like a flame in the wind. She was using one of her hands as a strut for her head, elbow resting against the doors to her right._

 _A faint rise of smoke billowed through the sky in the distance, concealed by the dark curtain of the night and the jungle's thick foliage._

 _The man spoke after a period of silence, his tone one of questioning._

 _"Hey Mabi, are you okay? You're being awfully silent..."_

 _"..."_

 _He looked at her in concern when she remained silent._

 _Suddenly it dawned on him._

 _"Does it bother you that much? It's been well over a week since the massacre. Has the connection progressed that much?" he asked as he turned his gaze back to the road, mind trying to grasp the growing influence her powers had on her new form._

 _'If I don't figure out something about this soon I'm gonna have to use it again.' he thought sourly, wincing at the phantom pain of using_ it _._

 _The young looking woman didn't respond to the man's questions with words, simply nodding her head instead._

 _"Crap... "_

 _He was well weary of asking his next question, but he had to know._

 _He was responsible for her situation._

 _"Does it hurt...? Are they in... pain? Y'know, because of what, uhh, killed them..."_

 _A heartbeat._

 _The silence spoke more than words themselves could._

 _He swallowed._

 _"...More than you can imagine." the woman finally answered in a soft tone before looking at him out of the corner of her eyes, several bangs intersecting across her visage, "And I can feel all of it."_

 _The man winced upon hearing that, the lines on his face turning into a grimace._

 _A sigh escaped him moments later as he leaned back into his seat._

 _He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous tick if you will._

 _"I can't help you, I'm sorry. Its just... nothing I've tried seems to work..." his expression turned from grim hesitance into a savage anger, "Damnit all! I should have paid attention to Ero-sennin when he was trying to teach me more about Fuinjutsu, then maybe I could figure this out and help you."_

 _The woman closed her eyes when she heard him berating himself._

 _That idiot._

 _He was wrong to think that._

 _He did everything he could and then some._

 _The blond continued in a frustrated voice, switching the target of his anger from himself to the true culprit of her situation, "I mean, what the hell was that old coot thinking when he decided to... do that! He's supposed to be your dad y'know. Fathers don't do that! They just.. don't! I'm surprised you guys didn't go completely insane because of them. -"_

 _One red eye peeked open inside the darkness of the Death God's seal._

 _" **Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence partner.** "_

 _It went ignored._

 _It harrumphed before going back to sleep._

 _The beauty frowned at him._

 _His frustration at his so-called failure would have been an admirable trait if she didn't know any better._

 _"...-It's all my fault. I made you a body that's far too attuned to Shin for me to sever the connection now. Not with what I know. I think I made it too powerful a medium when performing the creation senjutsu. I'm so stupid!" he was forcing his friend to live through all of that pain with the added burden of having much more powerful human emotions and feelings to suffer under now thanks to his careless actions. He wouldn't go as far as to say that the demons they once were didn't have emotions because they did, just like any other living, breathing creature, but the old man who brought the practice of ninjutsu into reality made sure to keep them simple, not as convoluted as regular humans._

 _He was scum._

 _In helping them he had only made their lives even more miserable._

 _Maybe that was the old sage's foresight, his reason to keep the nine beasts emotion free?_

 _He sighed miserably._

 _Rolling her mismatched eyes at the blond's dramas and smiling despite the pain she was feeling, she reached over and ruffled the blond's messy hair._

 _"Awww, don't worry about Matatabi-nee, Naru-chan. I'm a tough girl, you know that!" the mighty demon known in their lands as the Two Tailed Hell Cat gave the blond boy – he was a boy in her eyes despite his physical age, being far too kind with what he'd lived through to be considered an adult – a weak grin as she combed through his soft hair._

 _His reaction caused her to smile._

 _If he was annoyed by her then that meant he wasn't thinking those bad thoughts anymore._

 _It meant he wasn't sulking anymore._

 _Sulking didn't fit him, never has, never will._

 _It was her job to help him heal after all, and after everything that had happened to him in the past, it was the least she could do._

 _Kurama couldn't help him anymore, not with their past, so she had to be the one to do it._

 _Moments like these were much needed baby steps._

 _"Matatabiiii! Stop calling me that, I'm not a little kid for fuck's sake!" the blond whined._

 _She gave him one of her new patented 'Onee-sama' looks._

 _"Oh stop brooding you big baby! I'm just teasing you is all."_

 _"Hmph!" the blond muttered a few choice words, like 'troublesome' 'cheeky' and 'cats'._

 _The smile slowly dropped from the beauty's face_ _as she looked back towards the direction of the burning village._

 _They were getting closer. She could actually see the fires' flares in the backdrop of the night without enhancing her eyesight._

 _"I'll be honest with you Naruto, I never expected you to do this much for us in the first place." she said seriously as she sat up straighter in her seat, moving her black and blue hair away from her face, "_ _You know no one demanded you to work so hard for me and my siblings' well being, yet despite it you give your all to make it better and for that we are all grateful, never doubt that... Isn't that right, Kurama?" Matatabi's eyes narrowed dangerously at her sibling, whom she could see through a mental link they shared with Naruto._

 _Thanks to their new circumstances it only worked in close proximity, but nevertheless it was still one of their sacred bonds._

 _The nine tailed Kitsune scoffed, "_ **Blah, you don't see me walking around pretending to be a lowly human Nibi, I do that as a proper fox thank you very much. Keep me out of this.** _" its massive, lumbering form produced a booming growl with worrying ease, so much that it could shake the lands with a mere roar. Their powers didn't deserve to be bastardized into fake human bodies._

 _"But I only made things worse."_

 _Matatabi rolled her mismatched heterochromatic eyes at her eldest sibling's words before looking back at her blond friend with a soft gaze, patting his shoulder._

 _"Naruto. Listen. I really think it's past due time for you to finally realize that, though powerful and skilled you are, a seal master nor a god you are not. Not even our '_ mother' _could tackle every obstacle she came across in life and she brought the world as we knew it into existence." she said with a tone that broke no argument from him, shrugging her shoulders and letting her head find its perch on her hand once again, "The fact you managed to beat her before your own powers fully manifested and matured proves that, even if how you did is... a tactic better left for other topics." she said with an appreciative shine in her eyes while giggling slightly._

 _Suffice to say, with the new emotions and feelings also came unknown chemical effects on their new bodies, most commonly known as hormones._

 _Lot's and lots of hormones._

 _The blond did his best to ignore his friend's frequent aroused moods._

 _"Great then. All the power in the world that I could ever hope to hold and I can't even help my friends."_

 _Her giggling ceased as she twitched in her seat, eyebrow jumping at his tone._

 _Didn't she just-?_

 _A moment passed before Matatabi took a deep, calming breath and closed her eyes. It wouldn't do if she got aggravated at his thickheadedness, it was just the way he was and there was nothing she or her siblings could do to change it. All of them realized it long ago. Not that they would in the first place. This overly stubborn streak and the willingness to take on unreasonable burdens all that so he could make those close to him feel better was what made Naruto, Naruto. It was what allowed the young boy to still see light in a world that thrived on darkness, even after becoming one of the monsters in the night._

 _She leaned away from the window and turned to gaze at the whiskered shinobi gratefully, one hand reaching up and softly caressing his cheek._

 _"Listen Naru..."_

 _He looked at her, wondering what's up with that motherly tone._

 _"Don't you ever try to tarnish what you did for us, or I'll never forgive you, baka!" she teased her Naru-chan while poking him in his soft spot with a finger, smiling softly when his look of curiosity gave way to one of annoyance and indignant laughter - he was quite ticklish there you see._

 _"You've done us well more than any other being ever has, not even our father showed such care for any Tailed Beast. Not me, not Kurama, not one of us. You practically tore your being and soul apart to give me a sliver of happiness."_

 _His face slowly started to resemble his mother's hair._

 _"It was nothing y'know."_

 _She shook her head. "Don't try that on me._ _I know how much it hurts you to use Rikkudo Senjutsu. You weren't even 20 when you first accessed it. Your body was not ready, and it had consequences."_ _He winced at the phantom pain._

 _Power didn't come without consequences._

 _Deep within the blond's inner world of life-force, the nine tailed fox rolled its eyes at how she was smothering its partner in cuddly words and soft words._

 _Bleh._ _They were massive chakra constructs with a consciousness attached to them almost as an afterthought, they had no reason to act like that._

 _While it respected the great Sage greatly, there was no familiar love between them._

 _"It's that recklessness to help others, the desire to make everyone around you happy and that drive to sacrifice yourself to make it happen why I'll always consider you to be a kind and good hearted man that you are, even if you decide that everyone else has to die for the pain to go away."_

 _She could see Kurama's murderous glare. The oldest sibling was giving her a warning._

 _'_ And Kurama thinks I'm being overly protective?' _she thought with a huff._

 _Naruto looked very queasy with what his friend just said but he couldn't help the smile that touched his face._

 _He was lucky to have such fri... such a family._

 _He peered at Matatabi's honest, wide smile closer and his own smile widened._

 _Yes, he could consider Kurama, Matatabi and their siblings his family._

 _An odd and certainly strange family consisting of a single 'pure' biju who's basically hatred manifested – the myths weren't that far off actually – specifically watching over him like some sort of annoying older brother / uncle figure, 8 hybrids who were neither human nor demon anymore who went on to do their own things but kept in contact and a crippled ninja incapable of using his powers to their full effect, but a family indeed._

 _He couldn't ask for anything better._

 _Even if they spent most of their time annoying him to no end._

 _Matatabi decided to end their conversation, they were about to make it into the village._ _"You're not a child anymore Naruto. You must grow to accept that there are some things that you just_ can't do _. Besides, I've already accustomed to my role in this new world as a conduit for departed souls to the Death God, its pact with your life-force cannot be disputed even in different realms. I have nothing against the dead. The pain is minuscule compared to their own passing and I've grown to accept how it feels in this body. It's nothing new to me."_

 _Naruto saw his chance to argue, "But that was before! You're human now Matatabi. Humans can't handle such weight, I should know! Which is why I swear to help you get rid of that burden!"_

 _The same fire which once burned in his eyes, the light that shone in him when he had to fight the full force of god_ _to save his world from total destruction reignited in his eyes upon his promise._

 _Matatabi sighed as she looked at the burning corpse of a town they were driving into, knowing that she would never win their ancient argument now._

 _Naruto was always too stubborn to let things be._

 _The iconic motorized American vehicle stopped its momentum with a skid through the mud as it reached the middle of the coastal fishing/smuggling village._

 _Naruto cast a look around him before he slowly stepped out of his ride. He didn't bother turning off the jeep's engine, donning his heavy raincoat / cloak to keep himself dry from the rainpour as he shut the doors behind him after he fished out a flashlight from beneath his seat._

 _The whiskered shinobi turned around with a frown on his lips as he began to scower the ruins for survivors, though he doubted to find any._

 _The smiting fire of Heaven left little behind._

 **X-x END CHAPTER x-X**

 **Author's Note:** I'm doing Beta work for _Reborn as Issei_ by **lfonzo,** I definitely recommend you go and read it.

Those who claim Naruto's been NERFED:

 **1)** That's your opinion, you're entitled to it.  
 **2)** Instead of complaining rudely (you know who I'm talking about), write a Godly Naruto fic.  
 **3)** While I love seeing him smash his opponents, my Naruto's are always ninja first, super saiyan second. What does that tell you?  
 **4)** Naruto is an assault shinobi. He's basically a tank. Takes hits and makes things blow up in rather spectacular ways, but would usually require support from dedicated specialists (Sai), medical ninjas (Sakura) and genjutsu/ninjutsu users (Kakashi). Kur0Kishi's Naruto has almost no power and he's still one of the most badass Naruto's I've ever read about. Right up there with Kenchi618's Metal Gear Solid Naruto. His works radiate pure awesomeness. Fuck Rinne Senjutsu, gimme me more Ninjaism. Pure power - while a factor - gets you nowhere in the long term and is just an excuse for lazy writing if the plot resolves around it. Or else the Kyuubi would never have gotten sealed in the first place since I'm pretty sure Kurama has more chakra than Minato even in its weakest (like Yang Kurama making a bijudama bigger than itself after being completely drained of all of its chakra, hmm? Ring a bell?).  
 **5)** A perfect, unbeatable character does not a good read make.  
 **6)** Waaait for it...  
 **7)** I'm serious, wait for it. The breadcrumbs are falling.


End file.
